“We are very grateful for TTT” wrote our colleague Margherita Zilliacus from Finland after teaching TTT in Senegal and Sierra Leone.

One of our Tapping colleagues, Margherita Zilliacus from Finland, has been doing TTT training at a rehabilitation center for drug addicts in Dakar in Senegal. The social workers who participated found the method useful and gave it a new name: Nioko Bokk which in their language wolof means “This is for everybody”.

Already after the first couple of sessions they said that it had helped them with symptoms like pain, congestion, tiredness, sleeplessness, stress, headache etcetera. They will now continue to use the TTT for the clients at the center and in a prison for women.  

Margherita also went to the neighbor country Sierra Leone volunteering for Fambul Tok – a world renowned organization known for their community approach to reconciliation,  restoring trust between people after the ten year long (un)civil war (www.fambultok.org)

Me and our colleague Robert Ntabwoba worked with them a couple of years ago doing TTT trainings with their groups of Peace Mothers, i.e. widows of the war.

After her visit Margherita wrote: 

 “I went with Liliana (one of the Fambul Tok staff) to the village of Woama in Tankoro chiefdom. The chairlady of the Peace Mothers told me they still use TTT since you were there, every time they meet and also for themselves and others. They find it very helpful. They send greetings to you. Liliana is great. She really appreciated your work here. We also did TTT trainings in other villages.”

You can see the chairlady Sia James doing TTT in our video from Sierra Leone.

We got an email from Joseph Ochieng, an activist and
TTT trainer from Kibera, supposed to be Africa´s largest shanty town,
telling about his initiative to reach out to vulnerable women and children
in an other neglected part of his country Kenya. He himself was trained in TTT during a workshop in collaboration between Initiatives of Change (www.iofc.org) and Peaceful  Heart Network in Nakuru, north from Nairobi in Kenya:

“Jambo,

I trust that you are doing fine. 

I recently went to Nyanza province near Lake Victoria to meet a group of women at Bar-Ober in Siaya county that I know since an outreach program of our organization Pillars of Kibera (pillarsofkibera.org). I am humbled to let you know that the Trauma Tapping Training has come to be a tool of great help to the vulnerable women and the youth in Siaya. 

They suggested that if we could do a short documentary on Trauma Tapping Technique, it could be screened in their communites during meetings, in schools and in other institutions.

I also got opportunity to meet with the principal of Butere primary school and had a lengthy discussion with him elaborating the concept of TTT and how it could be of use in schools in the rural areas, where children have a lot of challenges that affects their studies.

I must say that i am very touched and honored by your efforts to contribute to some solution to the challenges that many people are going through. The TTT offer an opportunity that I wish we had more of.

Thanks once again for the support and opportunity that you offer to me by standing with us. Best greetings Joseph of Pillar of Kibera.

We humbly realize our limitations in spreading trauma relief. One of them is finances. We currently fund everything out of our own pockets and with help from those of you who donate. Normally money is the best way to help us, because our main costs are transportation and water for trainings. On rare occasions we need materials. This was one. 

Thank you so much to Swedish Printing company GL-Tryck for enabling us to spread the pocket size instruction booklet in french and english in both D.R. Congo and Rwanda in thousands of copies that we could never afford to print ourselves. 

If you ever print in Sweden and care for what we do, honor this printing company. They helped us print two boxes of Trauma Tapping instructions and speed delivered for our project in D.R. Congo as a donation.

In the photo you can see liberated child soldiers at BVES with the Trauma Tapping pocket instruction. Thanks Marina Wiking for the layout help and Caroline Piers for the French translation. We are very thankful. You have all made a difference. Special thanks Hans Mossberg and GL-Tryck from Ulf and Gunilla.

VISIT THEM NOW: www.gl-tryck.se

P.S. If you feel like contributing you can click here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-us-heal-traumatic-stress

Murigo Veneranda, (in the middle) one of Peaceful Heart Networks Trauma Tappers in Rwanda has done a great scheme of TTT trainings for refugees in Kigema camp at the congolese border. After training eight of the responsible people in the camp, she has obliged them to train five people each in the camp till next time she comes. And then those 40 are going to train five each and so on. That is how you create a movement! If you have seen the film “Pay it forward” this is similar.

Will it be possible to reach all 14 000 in the camp? 

The refugees fled from DR Congo to Rwanda last year during the attacks of rebel groups during the M23 offensive.

Murigo and myself will go to Kigeme tomorrow.

I find it truly inspiring to visit and see the work done by the Trauma Tapping teams we support in DR Congo. The other day I went to see  the Trauma Tapping Centre in Bukavu. To get there you go from the centre of the city  towards the port, then turn up one of the hills overlooking Lake Kivu, passing the Psychiatric Hospital Sosame  and then you go down on a local unpaved road leading through the community called Kalele. All along the way people are moving, children on their way to school in their white and blue uniforms, others carrying loads on their heads, minibuses with the conductor hanging out the door to get more passengers, motorbikes… 

The TTT centre is just in the centre of the community in a small whitewashed house. The doors are open to anybody and somebody from the team is  present  more or less every day except sunday. People come by having heard about the centre from somebody, having heard that here is a place where you can get help when you have heavy thoughts, can´t sleep, are feeling sad or have thought about suicide because of problems and events you have lived through. Nobody has offered that before. But the needs are there.

I am welcomed by the Trauma Tapping team: Germando, Sylvie, Duni and Batu. Before we sit down to talk they receive and treat some clients who have already come to see them: a young girl of 17 who has difficulties to concentrate in school because of thinking of her parents who have died. A woman who suffers from insomnia and headache after losing her husband. An old man on crutches having amputated  his leg after an operation who says he feels useless and often gets angry for nothing. He has tried to hang himself twice.

“You know even a small problem for one person can destabilize a whole family and that family can destabilize the  whole community”, comments Germando after treating the old man. “That is what we see happening here. So many are living with traumas after years of conflict, difficult economy and frustration.”

The others agree and confirms how needed this centre has shown to be. When approaching schools and churches talking about trauma, how it shows and that it can be treated, they always get the same comment:

“Oh yes, you are right trauma is a big problem for us.”

“There should be centers like this everywhere to help people”, says Batu. “Then people would understand of what trauma is  and how it affects people and the society. And learn how to deal with it. The whole world should learn TTT, that is my opinion after experiencing this technique.”

“Yes, it is such a great feeling to see a smile from somebody who was so sad and traumatized before getting treated”, adds Germando. “Imaging if we could stop worrying about financing the center and focus on starting a new one in for example in Nindja where people have experiences so much violence from all the armed groups. I just hope people understand how much every dollar they donate means here. Even the smallest contribution is one more day of work made possible for us.” 

I met legendary Peace Builders Pastor Wuye and Imam Ashafa from Nigeria and the filmmaker Alan Channer, who has filmed documentaries about their work, a year ago in Canada. We all soon realized how well our different missions fit together. At a later point we reunited in Chad under the black Saharan sky, and continued our discussions how to work together. In November it came true in Kenya.

Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye were enemies, one being part of a muslim militia and the other of a christian one. Finally they realized the futility in being enemies and started working together building a platform to be able to assist groups of people to build peace.

Because of the documentary of Alan Channer, their work got known worldwide. Today they are invited all over the globe to assist people in reconciliation and peace building processes. Their method is well received because it has given positive results in many places.

Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye recognize the work of Peaceful Heart Network and the methodology of Trauma Tapping. During our joint workshop in Kenya they introduced the method to the participants who came from different ethnic groups:

“This Trauma Tapping is a new and universal method. The method crosses over all the borders of spiritual traditions, nationality, gender and race. And it is so simple. We need such an approach to help those who are traumatized and to be able to build long lasting peace.“

We held the TTT training as part of the reconciliation work, showed our videos from other workshops and exchanged experiences on symptoms of trauma and what makes people traumatized.

One of the participants, the tall Chief Zephaniah Lekachuma from the cattle herders in the north west of Kenya, was very keen to learn. I asked him to demonstrate his new knowledge to the others and have them to follow the procedure from him instead of me. He was more than willing.

I asked how he found the Tapping:

“I feel very relaxed”, he said somewhat surprised. “Specially when tapping on the chest and on the eyebrows. I will definitely use this in my area. So many people come to my office and tell they are traumatized for different reasons.”

Everybody applauded him and laughed in the relaxed atmosphere that mostly settles after a trauma tapping training.

After the workshop Pastor Wuye wrote:

“Thank you for what you offered to the people of Kenya. Many said you have given them a life long gift.”

http://www.anafricananswer.org/node/67678

————

Here is a trailer to the film “An African Answer” about the work of Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnfJnrtXliU

“For anyone who wants to do holistic peacemaking, you need to recognize and know how to handle trauma — because conflict is about causing injuries to people.”

These words come from the manual on Peace building that comes with the film “An African Answer”. These words that made me happy, because this resonates with the thinking of Peaceful Heart Network: “you need to address the trauma to be able to build long lasting peace!”

It is a dream coming true to work with these committed people and be able to move trauma work to being part of reconciliation.

The workshops were arranged in a collaboration between Initiatives of Change (www.iofc.org) and US Institute of Peace (www.usip.org)

In the community of Mumosho, just outside Bukavu in Eastern DR Congo we have been supporting a Trauma Tapping Centre since early 2012 (pls check earlier text in the blog). There are three persons managing the centre on a regular basis, receiving clients and giving trainings. The response from the community has been very positive. Mr Amani Matabaro, our contact person and organizer wrote the other day a mail about the importance of the work:

Amani Matabaro, responsible for the Mumosho Trauma Tapping Center.

“Mumosho is one of the war affected places in the Eastern Congo which has remained with no humanitarian assistance. During the wars of invasion against DR Congo, Mumosho has served as a port of entry to foreign troops and prior to that the area has hosted a huge amount of the refugees after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, hence Mumosho has been affected on several dimensions.

Several attacks by armed groups have terrorized people in Mumosho. Not only these have been the problems but also SINELAC, a Great Lakes Region power company and Pharmakina, a German company known for their Quinine Malaria medicine project, have put all the fertile lands in Mumosho on a compulsory purchase request order.

All this together have left almost everyone in the community so poor, desperate, frustrated, living with everyday fear, traumatized, sad, angry, jumpy, anxious….

Soon after the TTT centre had opened in the area, most of the clients who have attended and taken TTT as a treatment have gradually been recovering from their symptoms which for a very long time have affected their thoughts and emotions. Many of those who come to the center tell that they have recovered from insomnia, everyday headache, fatigue and many other PTS symptoms.

There is need to disseminate the TTT treatment at a very large scale, make it sustainable at different community levels and this includes schools, health facilities and other places with large populations. TTT in Mumosho has shown it is an efficient treatment, and only requires an effective dissemination approach to reach those in need! It is necessary also with more trainings in schools for teachers to become able to handle war affected kids.”

TTT training for men in Mumosho.

Mr Safari Maneno, headmaster of one of the primary schools in Mumosho.

Celebrating TTT certification at the Trauma Tappig Center in Mumosho. 

Bukavu Tapping Centre

Another Trauma Center of Peaceful Heart Network is in the city of Bukavu, also this in the conflict prone region of Eastern DR Congo.

TTT training at the Bukavu Trauma Tapping Centre.

The reports from the Bukavu Centre, like from Mumosho, keep telling us: Healing IS possible! It also tells how many symptoms of trauma people live with and how it affects their daily life. There is truly so much value in helping the population in this sensitive area. Please check for yourself the results form Bukavu: click here

The results from the Bukavu Centre would not be possible without the hard work of Germando Barathi and his two colleagues. Germando was one of the first to be trained in TTT in Eastern Congo back in 2008. He and his colleagues are constantly finding new ways of spreading the Trauma Tapping to individuals, organizations and communities.

Right now the team at the Bukavu Centre is planning for a workshop in another community called Nindja where people have suffered attacks from different militias. They will also make a TTT introduction to IRC – International Rescue Committee – one of the biggest international humanitarian organizations in the area.

The Bukavu Peaceful Heart Network also belongs to a coordinating group of initiators working on mental health, including the internationally renowned Panzi Hospital, the Psychiatric Hospital Sosame as well as international organizations like Warchild and IRC.

For those who want to learn about the situation in Eastern Congo please check: www.enoughproject.org

Initiative in Rwanda

In Rwanda there are several organizations using the TTT after the trainings we have conducted there. There are also individuals committed to spread the method. One of them, Murigo Veneranda, who was in the first group of young survivors of the genocide that we educated in 2007, has recently taken several initiatives.

She is conducting trainings in TTT in refugee camps at the border between DR Congo and Rwanda called Kigeme. There has recently been large number of people fleeing to Rwanda from North Kivu in DR Congo because of violence and rising conflict around the mining areas. In the Kigeme camp there are approximately 14 000 refugees.

“People in the camp love the TTT and how simple the method is to learn. They say it helps them in their daily life and enhance their health” writes Murigo.

Murigo Veneranda knowns very well by her own experience how much the tapping can change in a persons life.

” Without TTT I don´t know if I would be alive today”, she says. “This method is very good because you can help also those who have a lot of problems but do not want to talk about them. I am ready to work with TTT everywhere I go.”

Making it happen – a well needed and used donation

Last August we received an email from Rob Nelson the organizer of an EFT Gathering (Emotional Freedom technique – the most widely spread version of Energy Psychology) in California, US. The email said in brief:

“The participants of the EFT Gathering will make a contribution to a project working with Tapping. We will probably raise between 2000 and 3000 dollars. We have decided to donate the money to Peaceful Heart Network. Thank you for all the great work you are doing.”

In the end we got 4000 dollars! This donation will help us to continue running the Trauma Tapping Centers in Bukavu and Mumosho in Estern DR Congo and also fund some other projects during the coming months. If you have any ideas about how we could find other similar opportunities for funding our work please let us know.

Help us make people get out of their prison of trauma and laugh and be happy again! 

Conversation a Saturday afternoon in the office of Human Rights Without Borders, downtown N´djamena, the capital of Tchad. Lawyer Daniel asks me:

“What did you know about Tchad before coming here?” 

 “Not much,… I knew that Lake Tchad is shrinking and that there are a lot of refugees from Sudan …. that´s all….” I answered feeling somewhat ignorant.

“Not bad at all!” lawyer Daniel exclaims happily with a broad smile. “When I came to the international airport in Japan last year the passport control officer stared at my passport. Then he looked up at me and shouted:

“Ha! Did you make this passport yourself??!!! Tchad!! where should that country be ?”

“We here in Tchad, we know that Japan exists…” laughs lawyer Daniel.

*********

I fell in love with Tchad

After two weeks in Tchad I thought of making myself a T-shirt with the text: I <3 Tchad – you know with the heart between “I” and “Tchad” – like ”I <3 NY”. 

 Few have made me feel so warmheartedly welcome as the people I met in Tchad.  I could not resist being taken by this country in the middle of Africa –  the breastbone of the continent.

Tchad is very hot. And dusty. Semi desert. Everybody asks somewhat excusing: ”Comment ça va avec la chaleur?” How do you cope with the heat? 

Governments have treated people badly in Tchad. You could think you would meet “victims” but they are all “survivors”. This resilience keeps fascinating me. Be it here in Tchad or in Congo, Sierra Leone or Rwanda. People who have been through so many hardships, still they are  smiling and caring  for others. And accepting and trusting even a stranger like me.

I was invited to Tchad by the lawyer Hassan Abakar. One of those gentle and compassionate Tchadians. We met at a conference in Switzerland last summer. He asked me about meditation and how he could practice. We started talking. We soon got in to the theme of trauma. He told me that there was no help to be found for those traumatized after the terror executed by a dictator, the Hissein Habré regime. No clinics. No therapists. No mental hospital. 

“Gunilla, could you come to Tchad?” he asked. That is how this initiative started. A meeting of serendipity. 

After one of the TTT trainings in N´Djamena I join the group of women resting outside the hall. We all have dresses in bright colours. We sit down in the shadow.  

“Thank you for coming so far,  to us here in Tchad”, they say.

“Nobody has offered us peace of mind before. We didn´t know it was possible. Now we know.” 

We chat. One of them brings dried dates and newly fried peanuts. The peanuts are so good. We also need water…. lots of water. A young boy brings a bucket of water as we continue to chat. The women are survivors of torture, but I wonder if anybody who saw them now would guess… 

If you are interested in finding out more about techniques and therapies in the domain called Energy Psychology – where Trauma Tapping Technique is one of them – there are international conferences each year. These conferences are great meeting places for learning about new approaches, research  being done and getting connected to people with different experiences of using Energy Psychology. The two most known are the one arranged by ACEP (Association of Comprehensive Energy Psychology) in San Diego, in the US (www.energypsych.org) and by CAIET (Canadian Association for Integrative and Energy Therapies) in Toronto, Canada.(www.caiet.org). In Europe the Energy Psychology Congress takes place in Heidelberg, Germany.

Robert Ntabwoba demonstrates TTT at the CAIET conference in Canada.

Last October me and my Rwandese colleague Robert Ntabwoba were invited to the CAIET conference to hold a session about our work of healing trauma in post conflict areas in Africa. Apart from the pleasure of sharing ideas and experiences the conference gave us perspectives and insights about our work. We realized that quite few work in “the field” on community level with Energy Psychology methods like we do. Our simplified tapping protocol without so called “set up phrases” also surprised the seminar participants: “Aha, that might be a way I should use with my client who does not want to tell her story….” “So it works without words?! I have to try…!” were some of the comments we got. Our results of healing traumatized survivors of war and other kind of violence also made many interested. They found it encouraging that people can heal from such severe traumas in such a gentle and empowering way.

We didn´t know we had such a different approach. We learnt a lot. Life is a fascinating learning process. More to come!  

Thanks to our participation in the CAIET conference we have now been invited to another conference: EFT Gathering/Canada that will be held in Toronto 21- 22 of April 2012 (www.eftgatheringcanada.com) Join the exploration of Energy Psychology! There is a lot still to be discovered. And like the Nobel Prize Laureate in Medicine Albert Szent-Györgyi’s states:

“In every culture and in every medical tradition before ours, healing was accomplished by moving energy.”

Keep moving! 

City of Joy in Bukavu in eastern Congo – is an initiative to change the role of women by transforming pain to power.

One of the many fascinating things about being in Congo is meeting all these people who want to be – and are – part of change and peacemaking. I love the conversations and the visions evolving, making you realize how we all can contribute to make our world a safer and more happy place to live in.   

“Be the change you want to see in the world” is the quote from Mahatma Gandhi always to be remembered. Just changing ones attitude to other people can make a lot of difference. Looking at things from a different angle. Change is always possible.

Many of my congolese friends and colleagues have dedicated their lives to make a change in their country: to save the forests, assist the pygmies, liberate child soldiers, heal trauma, reinforce women, reconcile between people etc etc. And my white friends – the muzungus – who have come here to do their part by sharing their special knowledge and skills.

During one of those conversations – with a spine surgeon from New York who has started a project to offer operations to people who have damaged their spine, often due to falling while working in the mines – I came to think of a favourite poem by Rainer Maria Rilke:

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for may for once spring clear without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do
flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

I know that every person has this ability to change the world exactly where they are, and you have probably found what you can do easily to make a difference, right?